Photos courtesy of Bill SchweikertFather Ramon Dagoberto Quinones Alvarez explains how he tries to care for migrants who are attempting to stow away on moving trains heading north from Mexico to the U.S. during filming of "Desconocida," a documentary about the immigration crisis.

When the local film photographer Bill Schweikert and film editor Tim Pierce agreed to work with her on a documentary about the deep issues behind the current immigration crisis, Ellin Jimmerson knew her film had "legs," as a friend put it.

Now it has wings - or a "West Wing," at least.

Martin Sheen, the award-winning actor known for his portrayal of the idealistic Catholic President Josiah Bartlet on NBC's 1999 to 2006 series "The West Wing," called Huntsville on Monday to offer to do the voice-over for "Desconocida."

The surprise call from Sheen, who is known for his advocacy for human rights and environmental issues, came in response to an e-mail invitation sent by the Rev. Handy Avery, one of the ministers at Weatherly Heights Baptist Church, where Jimmerson is a deacon. Sheen's offer has kicked the project, now a year in the making, into high gear.

Sheen will read the voice-over script, which Jimmerson is writing, in a Los Angeles studio on Dec. 3.

"Isn't that amazing?" asked Jimmerson. "When I called the studio to arrange the taping, they asked if I would be flying out to direct. Me. Directing Martin Sheen!"

Jimmerson, an ordained Baptist minister who also holds a doctorate in American history, has just concluded filming more than 100 hours of interviews with immigrants to the United States from Mexico and Central America. Some of the interviews were done in Alabama and some along the border between Arizona and Mexico.

Using donations from friends and personal savings, Jimmerson and Katherine Weathers, who helped found the Huntsville Immigrant Initiative, hired Schweikert and Pierce to film and edit the film. Schweikert and Pierce's previous collaboration, "Like Moles, Like Rats," was screened at the international film festival at Cannes, France. Screening at a well-regarded festival is one way to help get a distribution agreement.

"Not knowing anything about filmmaking probably helped us," Jimmerson said, laughing. "If we'd known how much money it would take ..."

She leaves her thought unfinished and waves away the rest of the sentence with a smile.

Often only scraps of clothing indicate someone died attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico. This shoe was found on the Arizona side of the border with Mexico.

Border travels

In addition to interviews with immigrants, Jimmerson has interviewed Border Patrol officers; a representative of the Minute Men, the citizen-driven border patrol organization; economic experts and aid workers on both sides of the border. They have 79 people telling their stories on camera.

The idea is to help bring some light to an area where there is increasing heat, and to let people give all sides of the story, Jimmerson said.

"I want to bring the major issues surrounding illegal immigration into focus - and link it to issues of justice," she said. "It's not brain surgery. It's just listening."

Jimmerson also has done the brainier side of her project. Her doctoral studies at the University of Houston concentrated on the relationship between the U.S. and Central and South America. While completing her master's of theological studies at Vanderbilt University, she also studied liberation theology, which reads the Bible from the viewpoints of oppressed people.

Despite having spoken to hundreds of people across North Alabama about the deeper issues driving the flight of impoverished workers from Latin America into the United States, Jimmerson felt frustrated by her reach and increasingly alarmed by the anger she heard voiced by U.S. citizens over the issue. She wanted to make a bigger impact.

"I realized the only way I could make it bigger, was to make a documentary," Jimmerson said.

"When we saw 'Invisible Children,' and we decided that if college kids could take a camera and go to Africa and produce a wonderful documentary, well, gosh dog, we could, too," said Weathers, laughing.

They both realized what was often missing in the rants of people at the hearings of last year's Joint Interim Patriotic Immigration Commission and in other heated discussions is a sense of the human impact of government and business policies both here and in Latin America.

"I wanted to let people speak who weren't being heard," Jimmerson said.

What's impressed her most, she said, are those who have talked to her, even at the risk of their lives.

They have concealed the faces, names and locations of the immigrants interviewed who are in the United States without documentation, they said.

"And make it very clear I have no idea where they are now," Jimmerson said. "I don't want ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) showing up in my driveway."

Movie making

Money: The Rev. Dr. Ellin Jimmerson, writer and director, and Katherine Weathers, producer, invite others to help with the film documentary, "Desconicida," which is sponsored by the Huntsville Immigration Initiative.
Donations may be made payable to Interfaith Mission Service, which has adopted the film as a project of the local agency. Donations are tax-deductible. Indicate "For HII's documentary" or "Desconicida" on the "For" line of the check. Mail to IMS in care of 7906 Seville Drive, Huntsville, Ala. 35802.

Translation: Jimmerson and Weathers are also seeking an interpreter to help with voice-over translations of the Spanish-language interviews. Payment will be the same as Martin Sheen is receiving (handfuls of gratitude).

Promotion: Jimmerson is available to speak to local groups about the immigration issue and the movie. Information: ejimmerson@knology.net.

Weathers, who took script notes during the interviews, said she was often writing as the tears ran down her face while immigrants told their stories. They told of being cheated out of their life savings by coyotes, guides who ask thousands of dollars to get a person across the border, of near-starvation back home, of separation from their families for decades, of relatives lost and probably dead.

"They thanked us for having the opportunity to tell their story, to be treated like real people." Weathers said. "One man thanked us for just looking him in the face."

"Desconocida," the film's title, means "unknown woman." The terms desconocida and desconocido for men are used for bodies recovered from the desert, about 5,000 this year. Experts estimate those recoveries represent about one-third of the people who die each year while attempting to get to jobs in the U.S. The desert's harsh conditions and animal scavengers can erase almost all signs of a body within two weeks.

Memorials to family members who have died attempting to cross the desert take the form of white wooden and paper crosses affixed to the border fence. After a while, even the barbed barriers themselves seemed to be crosses propped on the ground, Jimmerson said.

As a Christian, Jimmerson found herself unable to avoid a Christian perspective on the human and economic disaster. A child of the segregated South, she learned early that "legal" and "moral" are sometimes competing claims.

"These people are being crucified," Jimmerson said. "As Christians, we tend to do a pretty good job of charity. We're not so good at justice. To do justice means examining the system we're living in and examining the church's place in it."

"As Christians, we have a crucified and resurrected Christ at the center of our faith," she said. "I believe we must say that crucified - and resurrected - humanity has to be at the center of our praxis, which is practice combined with analysis. We can't just have a practice."

Between now and Dec. 3, the only day Sheen is available, Jimmerson has to fold all of these eye-witness accounts, first-hand testimonies, scholarly comments, theology, 100 hours of film and her own personal impressions into a 90-minute script. How on earth will she do that?

"Well," said Jimmerson, who sees in the project a challenge like that she faced in completing a book-length dissertation. "It has to start somewhere, and it has to end somewhere. I have to fill in some blanks and make some points clearer, and provide structure."

She pauses, considering, then adds, "I've got to just go ahead and do it and not fight it."